Burney's Bytes will focus primarily on the local preps sports scene, but will also touch on some college and pro athletics, mostly in regards to athletes who hail and have played high school sports in Oakland County. My goal for the blog is to be conversational and anecdotal, a more relaxed and free formal take on high school athletics than you see in regular game day coverage.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Balling It Up

The AAU basketball season brought out the best in some of the area's topboys prephoopsters.

The Southfield Transition, an AAU squad led by Southfield-Lathrup superstar guard Jonathon "Jon Jon" Williams and sporting 11 overall players from Oakland County on its roster, went down to Nationals in Orlando last week and brought home some hardware.

After dropping their first two games of the tourney, Williams and company roared back to win six straight and claim a 17-and-under National Championship in the Division II Classics Bracket in the process.

Da Dynasty is another local AAU team that has some serious county flavor in its potion for success. Leading the way for Da Dynasty's 17-U squad this summer has been Corey Green and Mike Oravetz, both of Madison Heights Bishop Foley. Like the Transition, Da Dynasty traveled down to Orlando, Florida last week to test itself against the best the country has to offer and came away with some serious bragging rights.

Playing in the Super Showcase, an invitation-only tournament of the best 150 teams in the nation, Green, an athletic and tenacious forward and Oravetz, an intelligent and hot-stroking guard, led their team to the final four, losing in the tourney semifinals by two points in overtime.

Immediately following their super showing in the Super Showcase, Da Dynasty showed extremely well again in AAU Nationals, becoming the only team from the state to win its pool and advance into the playoffs in the tourney's championship bracket. During pool play, Da Dynasty won their games by an average of 26 points. Staying hot, the team made a run all the way into the national quarterfinals where they fell in a heartbreaker at the buzzer by a single point.

One of the top returning players in the county, Green averaged 22 points and 12 rebounds a game over the course of both tournaments. Oravetz averaged 13 points, three assists and four 3-balls a game, complimenting Green's ferocious performance on the block.

Last winter, Green and Oravetz helped spearhead Bishop Foley to a Catholic League title as well as a Class C district championship.

Sanders is a freakish athlete at the forward spot and expected to blossom into a star next year at Lakeland on both the hardwood and the gridiron.

Brown was a backup on a Southfield squad that went to the Class A final four in March.

Woelke was a reserve on a St. Mary's team that rampaged its way into the Elite Eight in 2011.

Denham and Olaleye will team with Williams to make Southfield-Lathrup a definite contender next winter in the race for the OAA Red crown.

Hare improved greatly over the course of last season with Farmington under first-year Falcons coach Terrance Porter.

Dewberry, entering his junior year in the fall, has been on the Shrine varsity since he was a freshman and Eldridge and Fitzsimmons were key members of a very solid Berkley team last season. Eldridge also played a big role in the Bears football team that made the playoffs for the first time in over a decade last fall.

> For the past 10 days in Orlando,Da Dynasty AAU 17u once again proved they were one of the best teams in the country as well as the best team in Michigan.After being invited to play in the Super Showcase,which featured the best 150 teams in the country playing before college scouts from all across the country,they went on to win their pool and advance up to the semi-finals before losing in OT by 2.Playing before major coaches like Tom Izzo was a great for the kids and each game had 20-30 D1 scouts evaluating the players.Players who stood out and got the scouts attention were Corey Green(Bishop Foley),CJ Bates(East Detroit),Trent Jax(Chippewa), Mike Oravetz(Bishop Foley).Corey outplayed all the big men he faced,most of them 3-4 inches taller than him.Corey avg 21 pts 11 rebs during the Showcase and Mike Oravetz put on a show in the playoff rounds avg 14 pg along with 4 threes a game.Trent Jax also was bombing from the outside averaging 12 pts along with 3 triples a game.Bates put up 17 pg and many highlight dunks.They finished 5th in the country after their performance in the Showcase as well as their play in our national tournaments this past summer.

About Me

Scott M. Burnstein grew up in Bloomfield Hills and attended school at Birmingham Roeper, where he earned multiple varsity letters in both basketball and baseball, and has been following the local preps scene since the 1980's. Mr. Burnstein attended Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he received a bachelors of arts degree in political science, and the John Marshall Law School, in Chicago, Illinois, where he got his Juris Doctrate. He has covered high school sports for both the Detroit Free Press and the Oakland Press, and is the author of the 2007 regional best-selling book, The Motor City Mafia - A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit, Family Affair - Greed, Treachery, and Betrayal in The Chicago Mafia (2010), Mafia Prince - The Crazy Phil Leonetti Story (2012) and The Detroit True Crime Chronicles (2013).